Page 890 - Capabilities News Today

Information about things in the continental u.s. so theyve been tracking this for several days, but one of the differences here, this is not unprecedented. the chinese have had surveillance balloons like this, and in fact, theyve even come close and gone into the continental u.s. the difference here is this one straight into the u.s. and it stayed. it hovered. in the past theyve maybe come in and then left quickly. officials here at the pentagon became so concerned that on wednesday secretary of...

An area where we have enduring ties as our troops continue to train and conduct joint exercises side by side. as president biden has said, our alliance is the lynch pin of peace, stability and prosperity in the region. and is poised to grow stronger still with the launch of the republic of koreas new indo-pacific strategy this past december which reflects our shared interests and shared approaches to the regions most pressing challenges. today we reaffirmed our commitment to improving our ally d...

Important. it is a mistake to think that if we simply fund the department, that that alone is sufficient. if we dont have leadership that utilizes our capabilities, weve lost our opportunity to push back on china on this and other actions that they will take. so its disappointing to me. we worked hard in this recent appropriation bill to get more money to the defense department to defend our nation. but it also requires more than equipment and personnel. it requires leadership. >> neil: well-put...

>> ukraine question. the small diameter bomb in the latest ukraine package has the potential to target crimea. is that the intent behind providing it now? >> so thanks for the question, joe. yes, as part of the u.s. ai package, we will be providing ground launch small diameter bombs to ukraine. this gives them a longer range capability, long-range fire capability, that will enable them, again, to conduct operations in defense of their country and to take back theyve their sovereign territory in ...

Hovering over the united states and it has been for several days. defense officials say they continue to track it minute to minute and they will do so, and reserve the right to take some action if they maintain its a threat. again, i think the assessment on that continues to evolve every single minute, hallie. >> what does take some action mean, court, because weve -- some republicans want to shoot it down. they are concerned if this blows out of the sky it could be a danger to people on the gro...

Surveillance capabilities are better than the average satellite the chinese have up anyway in lower orbit thats already gathering information every single day. so the pentagon keeps saying theyre able to mitigate some of its surveillance capabilities both on the ground and in ways they wont talk to us about. >> court, ill let you go. ambassador locke, let me askia this. if you were advising president biden in the white house right now, what would you be telling him to do? >> well, i think they n...

Concern, but there are ways i am absolutely sure of being able to, in one way or another, not just track the balloon, but be able to maintain some element of control over where it goes. >> i assume if you were the secretary of defense or the cia director or the white house chief of staff at this moment, your advice to the president of the united states was whatever our capabilities under no circumstances let this get outside of the united states air space now that its in it without capturing it ...

And for that reason, i think its pretty clear that we cannot allow this balloon to simply keep going in space and ultimately return to china. thats not going to happen. so im hoping that the pentagon will continue to monitor it and that they will keep all options on the table in order to try to make sure that ultimately were able not only to know where this balloon is, but to be able to control what happens to it. thats very important. >> u.s. officials have said theyre not attaching their names...

China balloon incident lends a backdrop to the president of the union speech just a couple of days ago. on my reporting, a lot of people on both sides of the aisle are interested in what he says about china and his tone. >> you know as well as anybody the president right now is making final decisions about whether to run again in 2024. he has one potential challenger in the former president donald trump saying hell run. he posted shoot down the balloon on his twitter like posts as well, of cours...

Reconnaissance so we can learn more about their capabilities. when you put all that together, i think you have to listen to the military commanders on the ground or in this case in the air. >> if you say that the goal is to preserve the tech that theyre using, i assume your conclusion is at some point this balloon will be in u.s. custody? >> i hope so, but i cant say what the -- what the military is going to do exactly at this point. i think that, you know, lets just say its not a weather balloo...